The musings of an ordinary sort of God-bothering curate and educator from Yorkshire, God's own country.
Sometimes I think I am in a parallel universe as I ponder why some Christians seem so wilfully theologically illiterate.

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." Philippians 4.19

"Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Philippians 2.12

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Sunday Sermon: I am the Good Shepherd

John 10:11-18

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life
for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the
sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf
snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand
does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own
know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my
life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must
bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock,
one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life
in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own
accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I
have received this command from my Father.

Today is Vocations Sunday. Because I’m the new boy, a number of people have been asking
me about myself so, a couple of pertinent points in that context: I am a returner to
Anglicanism. Before that I’d spent some years worshipping with the Lutheran
Church. Through them I was sponsored to go to Vicar School and, following a
placement in Estonia, I graduated a couple of years ago. But the Lutheran
church wasn’t for me in the end – or perhaps, more to the point, I wasn’t for
them (far too Anglican I was told) and so here I am, a returner to the Church of
England fold.

Now, I suspect most of you have little experience of
Lutherans, but you may have come across the American Author Garrison Keillor’s
Lake Wobegon stories set in deepest Minnesota. Keillor’s Lutherans, mainly of
Scandinavian origin, were a morose lot who flourished in a cold climate,
believing that adversity and suffering were given as moral instruction. Their
religion was primarily Christianity but made room for the ancient Nordic
precept that the gods were waiting to smack you one if you were having too good
a time. So they believed in the inevitability of suffering - far better to
anticipate disaster: if life was not miserable now it would be eventually, so
you might as well get a head start on the weeping and gnashing of teeth in the
here and now.

As Keillor notes: Lutherans were not brought up to
experience pleasure. It doesn't register on us. Sunlight makes us gloomy.

And on Anglicanism: The Lutherans of Lake Wobegon don't care
for Anglicanism. Anglicanism is for when you take a vacation to England. It's
like nightclubbing - for special occasions. You don't want to make a practice
of it.

Pastor Inqvist was the Lutheran Pastor of Lake Wobgon. His
congregation hoped for a sermon with a storming start and a storming finish….and
as short a space as possible between the two. So here we go:

May the words of my lips and the meditations of all our
hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus identifies himself through a
series of statements that start with "I am." He says:

I am the bread of Heaven

I am the light of the world

I am the resurrection and the life

I am the way, the truth and the life

I am the true vine

These "I am" statements begin to spell out to us
who Jesus is and this week we have: I am the Good Shepherd.

This passage of John’s is a beautiful passage but it may
suffer from what many gospel passages suffer from – overfamiliarity, or at
least partial overfamiliarity. If we were to do a survey here this morning on
the key message of the passage I’d be very surprised if the general consensus
wasn’t some variant on “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his
life for his sheep.” And we may sink into the comfort zone of expecting a
familiar homily on Jesus as Saviour-shepherd and Christianity as in some broad
sense the flock; Jesus loves us and cares for us and lays down his life for us
in the most profound and theologically layered way. And I have no problem with
that.

My problem is that, in my experience at least, the other
part of the reading, perhaps the more theologically challenging part of the
reading, tends to get overlooked.

Now for my first sermon here I’d have preferred, perhaps, to
have gone with the theologically familiar but, as coincidence would have it,
today is also Sanctuary Sunday and the less often explored part of today’s
gospel lends itself to this special day.

Sanctuary Sunday. Who knew? Maybe this is new to you.

The Sanctuary Sunday website explains: “City of Sanctuary is
a movement dedicated to creating a culture of hospitality for people seeking
sanctuary in the U.K. Leeds City of Sanctuary launched in 2010, with the aim
for Leeds to become a city of welcome for refugees and asylum seekers who come
to our city looking for sanctuary.”It
includes the subheading: Leeds churches supporting city of sanctuary. So this
is a humanitarian response and, of course, you don’t have to be a Christian to
recognise that refugees and asylum seekers, in addition to being used as
political footballs by some sections of the press who have singularly failed to
understand the definitions of either “refugee” or “asylum seeker”, are amongst
the most disadvantaged and traumatised of people we are ever likely to
encounter but who are all too often the “other” in our society. These are
people who have fled persecution, war or natural disaster. These are people in
fear of their lives - people who are the wrong racial group or ethnicity, who
have the wrong political or religious allegiance, the wrong sexuality - in
their own home context. These are people who have experienced extra-judicial
imprisonment, who have experienced violence – including torture and rape - who
have seen extra-judicial killings and who fear the knock at the door at three
in the morning because they know of others who did open the door to such a
knock and who were never seen again until their bodies were found in a shallow
grave years later. And there are plenty of photographs for those but I’ve
chosen not to use them.

But Christians are involved and so there needs to be a
theological response. Perhaps Matthew 25: For I was hungry and you gave me
something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a
stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you looked after me. I was
in prison and you visited me would do nicely for starters. When we do such
things for others it’s as if we do them for Jesus.

Alternatively, the parable of the Good Samaritan would be a
good model, or the ethics of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you - both exhortations to compassionate Christianity,
but today’s gospel gives us more because the roots of compassionate
Christianity are also to be found in the less familiar portion of the passage:
I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.I must bring them also, and they will listen
to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

For many, of course, this takes us well out of our comfort
zone: this isn’t a Jesus owned by an inward-looking church; not a parochial
Jesus but an all-embracing, inclusive Jesus. I must bring them also John
reports Jesus as saying – that same Jesus who was himself a refugee in Egypt as
an infant escaping certain murder. And this has implications – implications for
us; implications for the way we view ourselves in relation to others:
particularly the challenge of people who are not like us. So here we encounter
a Jesus not owned by Christians, but a Jesus who claims and cares for all of
God’s children. There is no “other” in Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom. This
passage is a challenge to Christian exclusivity and an affirmation of Christian
inclusivity. We are to hold all people as precious precisely because we are
Christian and we accept the challenge that the scripture gives us to embrace
one flock of humanity.

Compassionate Christianity, impels us to work tirelessly to
alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures and to honour the inviolable
sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception,
with absolute justice, equity and respect. No, not my words there, but words
from A Christian Charter of Compassion, a movement conceived by an admirer of
Martin Luther-King and from the same stable as the Sanctuary Sunday movement,
itself heavily influenced by our own Bishop, John Packer.

So what’s that to do with you and I? What is the practical
application? Well, one of the aims of the Sanctuary Sunday movement is that
people seeking sanctuary can easily build relationships with local people as
neighbours, friends and colleagues. Through these relationships, local people
come to understand the injustices refugees face, and become motivated to
support and defend them.

Well, there’s a challenge. How do we do that then? I don’t
know about you but have only met a couple of asylum seekers in passing; my
experience of asylum seekers and refugees is very limited. In my everyday life
I can’t see situations where I can easily meet and get to know them but then
perhaps that’s the challenge: maybe it shouldn’t be easy. Maybe I have to make
the effort and go out of my way to engage with people I wouldn’t normally meet
and to hear their stories.

How about you?

The second part of that Sanctuary Sunday aim would be easier
for me; the part that talks about understanding the injustices asylum seekers
and refugees face and defending them. I’m quite combative by nature. I’m quite
happy taking people on and challenging attitudes – and there are some dreadful
and misinformed attitudes out there about asylum seekers and refugees – and in
the context of today’s Gospel reading I am convicted that to do so would be my
Christian duty – not to collude by my silence when I hear those nasty
insinuations and stereotypical comments.

How about you?

I don’t come with easy answers: there aren’t any – but the
challenge is there. I subscribe very much to St. Paul’s principle in
Philippians chapter 2 to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Here’s the issue. Go away. Think and pray. Leave it to the Holy Spirit but come
up with a strategy that you act on. I think those are the marks of a mature
discipleship. After all, The Missio Dei – the Mission of God - is usually to be
found where the Holy Spirit is already at work, not in some new initiative.
Find where the Spirit is at work already and join in.

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must
bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock,
one shepherd.

3 comments:

When I came into contact with an asylum seeker my world was turned upside down. When I saw with my own eyes the racist attitude of the police and the lies told by our Home Office I was shocked. PLEASE get out of your comfort zone, get involved and save someone's life. It will change your life!

“God has called you for who you are. He wants you as you are for your uniqueness. Do not let others change you" (Archbishop Desmond Tutu to me, Sat 7th November 2009)

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About Me

Sir is a Curate, a former Doorman and former Religious Studies teacher. ("It's rubbish this Sir!"). He is a returner to Anglicanism following a period in the wilderness elsewhere. He sings with the Leeds Philharmonic Society - a choir with an international reputation. He would describe himself as being part of the Christian Left.